Social Media in Business: What You Actually Need

Social media in business is the buzzword these days, especially in internet marketing. It seems no one cares anymore that you have a solid website. If you’re not on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr these days, you’re a nobody. But just because you’re a little behind the curve doesn’t mean you can’t catch up! This guide will give you an idea of where you’re falling short and where you need improvement in your social media marketing strategy.

Implementing social media in business is a task many internet marketers delegate to an employee or an outsourced independent contractor. Why? Because it’s such a daunting task to set up multiple social media accounts that most serious business marketers don’t care to take the time to do it themselves. But if you’re a fairly small-time internet business, you’ll have to decide for yourself which is worth more: your time or your money. Is it worthwhile to hire someone else to handle your social media so that you can spend more time working on your business? Or are you on a shoestring budget where it makes sense for you to do the work yourself and expend half an hour a day managing your social media presence?

Social Media in Business: Must-Have Accounts

There are hundreds of website profiles one could make that technically fall under the category of “social media.” But not even half of them are necessary to build your presence online. There are probably less than 15 social networking sites that are truly crucial for you to use in building your social reach online. We’ll go over some of them here.

Anyone who has been on the internet for the past few years knows that it’s absolutely necessary to have a Facebook page, plain and simple. You need a Facebook page to connect with fans of your site or product, and quite honestly, you should want one because of the many advantages you have in reaching out to your customers and offering them exclusive deals.

Next, you need a Twitter account, but in many cases, Twitter is really only used as a placeholder so you don’t have to have an empty Twitter icon on your website. A lot of people still use it, that’s true, but it’s more for fun than anything, in some cases.

If your brand is fairly popular, make a Foursquare account, too. You can offer so many exclusive deals to your customers that you’ll be top on their list of vendors pretty soon. If you only have a few fans, however, it will do you well to reserve your page, but you probably won’t see much benefit out of it until you grow your fan base.

Social Media in Business: Smaller Accounts

There are several lesser known social networks that merit signing up with for your social media in business strategy. For example, Tumblr is a great place to blog just a few words of text, an image or a new video you uploaded. Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon are good for bookmarking, as is Google Bookmarks. Speaking of Google, you should also create a Google Plus account and a Google Plus page. These networks will help make your social media in business plan complete.

About Sean Donahoe

Sean is one of the most recognized industry leaders in business and marketing. As a popular speaker, author, consultant he has helped over 50,000 students world wide find success in their businesses and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and businesses of every size grow and thrive...